Breezes, Hurricanes, Twisters 2025, The Year of the Wood Snake. Part Two: the Animals

2025 is of course a Snake year, a Wood Snake year to be precise. This does not mean necessarily that the Snakes of 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001 and 2013 should be jumping for joy. Or those born in the Snake Month of May, the Snake Hour 9-11am or on Snake Days. It doesn’t quite work like that.

The rules are derived from the Ba Zi (that is “Eight Images” or “Four Pillars”) system of Chinese Astrology. Like every “pillar”, the Wood Snake consists of two Chinese characters one on top of the other: a Zodiac Animal or “branch”, below an elemental moderator or “stem.” Wood Stem, Snake Branch. Hence Wood Snake pillar.

Some authorities would say that the Zodiac Animal of the year always gets “poked” (that is challenged). So for Dragons 2024 was doubly challenging because they were reckoned also to be suffering the so-called “self-clash” meaning that they don’t thrive easily in their own years. The instruction for Dragons in 2024 was to step up and rise to challenges. For better or for worse such Dragons as Kamala Harris, Tim Walz and Marianne Williamson appear to have done exactly that.

Please note that the Early Bird for my Year Forecast (see more details below) ia about to expire. Friday October 31st is the cut-off date when it reverts to full sticker price!

In 2025 by contrast, the Dragon can expect to find themselves teaching and healing. If it’s their month that is ruled by a Dragon, this may actually be a fulltime thing. And there is every reason to suppose that Snakes such as Xi Jin Ping will be dictating the world agenda in 2025. The Snake is certainly favoured and can expect their projects to progress. Remember however that the Snake’s issue is truth – its revelation, maintenance or its disposability – and they may be called on any apparent inconsistencies.

What’s important to know then is that there is an animal corresponding to every Hour, Day and Month as well as every Year. We all have Four Pillars. So to get an idea of your own crests and troughs in 2025 you need to track all four of them*. Broadly your Year Animal relates to ancestors, the family you grew up in, family and DNA patterns; the Month Animal to shallower history, education, peers, siblings and the work environment; the Day Animal yourself and your most intimate feelings, thoughts and relationships; the Hour Pillar to your children, as well as your deepest
hopes and dreams. Which may well be unspoken.

This implies of course that it is as unlikely that all of your ruling animals will be banjaxed at any one time as that all of them will be blessed. Many Dragons simply placed their attention on their other pillars during 2024, taking the challenges as a hint to concentrate on the remit of their other pillars.

To follow that idea through, if you were born in a Pig year, like world’s richest man Metal Pig Elon Musk, this year may not be plain sailing because you oppose the Snake on the calendar, the clock and the compass. But if your hour of birth was mid- afternoon (say 3-5pm, the Hour of the Monkey) most of your plans will tend to prosper with perhaps a glitch in February when the Tiger makes things sticky. This will apply particularly to parents and the educational environment.

Meanwhile lovers of tv’s Strictly Come Dancing (American Readers please Google) one of the most popular shows of the 21st century this side of the Atlantic, should not expect double Tiger (Year and Month) Amanda Babbington to hold back on criticism of what’s been happening back stage. You don’t mess with Tigers.

By the same token, Rabbits who may have found themselves finally recovering during 2024 from the inconveniences (or worse) of the Water Years 2019-2021 can expect some breaks. The Yin Wood of the Rabbit profits from the Yang Earth of the Dragon just as a plant profits from rich soil, and can expect equal blessing from the Snake. A Rabbit day of birth indicates luck this year in affairs of the heart.

The two guides or tin yute gwai yans of 2024, Ox and Sheep tend to have differing experiences: this year Sheep are looking at two steps back early in the year before one forward later on. The Ox on the other hand moves on from the break-ups likely – domestic, business or otherwise – to have plagued 2024.

According to the T’ung Shu the annual almanac currently piled high in Chinatowns all over the world, and estimated to sell more copies than the bible around this time of year, the Horse enjoys four major positive Stars which speak for themselves, whereas the Dog, the Rooster, Rat and Tiger have three apiece.

There’s much more of course and I’ll be writing about the helpful and unhelpful locations in Hurricanes, Breezes and Twisters Part III soon.

For now you are cordially invited (for a modest fee) to my Year Forecast (Zoom on December 7th,  3pm GMT/9am EST, or in person here in leafy Godalming on the 14th when I will go much deeper into how the Snake Year may affect each of us, our homes, our lives, our priorities and our planet. Do join us.
Remember the Early Bird expires on October 31st (Tomorrow!) Click here to pay now

*We can do that for you if you ask nicely.

Richard Ashworth©
www.imperialfengshui.info